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CNN Live At Daybreak
NASA Waves Off Shuttle Landing For 24 Hours; Peter Jennings Dead at 67
Aired August 08, 2005 - 06:29 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We'll have more on that in a minute. First, though, we're following breaking news this hour, the death of Peter Jennings. The long-time ABC News anchor died last night. His death comes just over four months to the day since he revealed to a national audience he has lung cancer.
Jennings began anchoring "World News Tonight" in 1983. And, of course, he won awards left and right. ABC's Charles Gibson announced Jennings' death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES GIBSON, HOST, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": Good evening. From ABC News headquarters in New York, I'm Charles Gibson.
And it is with a profound sadness and true sorrow that I report to you Peter Jennings has died tonight of lung cancer. Peter died in his apartment here in New York. With him was his wife, Kayce, his children, Elizabeth and Christopher. His sister, Sarah, was also there.
His family just a moment ago released a statement, and I want to quote it: "Peter died with his family around him without pain and in peace. He knew he had lived a good life," end quote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Two years ago, Jennings was a guest on "LARRY KING LIVE." And Larry asked him how it felt anchoring the evening news for 20 years. "It seems like yesterday," he replied. "It seems like forever, all at the same time."
We'll have much more later this hour. But first, the other big developing story this morning, that highly anticipated return of the space shuttle has been postponed. The NASA manager says it's just too cloudy around the landing site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, so they have rescheduled a touchdown for tomorrow morning just after 5:00 a.m. Eastern, at least we think so.
Let's go live now to Miles O'Brien, who is near the landing strip. Good morning, Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Carol.
You know, it's the first reentry since 2 1/2 years ago, February 1, 2003, when Columbia, of course, disintegrated over the skies of Texas, killing the crew of seven. So much anticipated, as much of this whole mission has been, in the wake of the Columbia disaster, this the return to flight for the space shuttle fleet.
Commander Eileen Collins and her crew are now in the midst of -- well, it's a tricky process. They're in weightlessness, and they have to do a lot of rejiggering to get themselves back into an orbital configuration.
They spend a lot of time getting ready for landing, putting chairs and couches, you might call them -- whatever you may call them, seats, I guess, would be a better term -- get those into place, put on those bulky pressure suits that they have to wear when they go to launch and reentry.
And they're in the midst of the process of undoing all that, reopening the galley, restarting up the toilet, all the basics that you need to spend another 24 hours in space. CNN's John Zarrella has been watching things for us from Houston this morning.
John, the folks said they went back and forth on the weather. It looked a little bit good, looked a little bit bad. And actually, at the time they made the call -- I thought it was interesting -- it was go for landing at that time, but they have to project out an hour or so, don't they?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, it really wasn't any big surprise that they didn't go today. I think, given, as you know, Miles, very well, all the rules changes in the last 2 1/2 years that they were not going to take any chances at all. There wasn't any reason to take any chance with the opportunities tomorrow.
You know, and in fact I was talking with some of the NASA folks here a little while ago who said, "You know, if you don't know the program, you might think this is a big deal. But launches and landings get scrubbed and waved off on a fairly regular basis over the last 25 years of the space program, the shuttle program's history."
And in fact, you know, when we talked with one NASA spokesperson here, he told us that, you know, this is really not disappointing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYLE HERRING, NASA SPOKESMAN: I don't think it's disappointing at all. I think, you know, you've been waiting 2 1/2 years. You've flown as safe a mission as you possibly could fly. And when it comes down to any uncertainty with weather, particularly in Florida, no matter what time of day it is, you're certainly going to make sure that you get it right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: That weather in Florida, it's awful tough to predict. And it doesn't always cooperate and certainly didn't this morning -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, John Zarrella. Let's bring in a special guest. Joining us from Columbus, Ohio, this morning is Kathy Sullivan, among the first women to fly on the space shuttle, the first woman to do a spacewalk.
The last time we saw you, Kathy, they were doing that incredible spacewalk where they plucked out those gap fillers from the tiles there, Steve Robinson doing a good job with that.
I assume you had a wave-off or two in your career, but I haven't looked it up. Did you ever have one?
KATHY SULLIVAN, FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO WALK IN SPACE: I did, Miles. I had one rev delay, just like we saw here this morning with the 114 crew, two target opportunities. We were all suited up and strapped in for the first one. We waved off to the second one.
And then on another flight, not quite so far into the de-orbit preparations, it became clear the weather was going to be no-go for our primary landing day. So we had a 24-hour wave-off.
M. O'BRIEN: I was just talking to Cady Coleman, who is right beside me here. And she, in her flights, has not, as she put it, had the good fortune to get a wave-off, because she was thinking she'd get some window time. Kathy, is it window time for the crew once they get sort of configured for orbit operations?
SULLIVAN: You know, it's a bit like your off-duty days. It's quite a treat. You're not going to unstow everything that's been tidied up. It took them all day yesterday to get the cabin ready to come home.
And Cady described it quite well. But a bunch of the stuff that you know you're going to need tomorrow, you'll just leave in place. It's not that big of a deal.
There's housekeeping on the orbiter to do, maintaining the systems, keeping things going. But our commander was pretty cool, breaking out some extra cameras, using up what last bits of film we had, and basically just enjoying some time that really had no obligations to it, to give yourself that treat of extra looks out the window and some little extra time in zero G.
M. O'BRIEN: So it may be a little bit of a letdown, in the sense of you're sort of anticipating seeing family. But at the same time, not a bad place to be.
SULLIVAN: It's not at all a bad place to be. I didn't take it as any much of a letdown. It's a very precious thing to get to spend time in orbit. And if you get a little extra of it, it's just a treat.
M. O'BRIEN: Cady, you've been listening pretty closely to what's going on air-to-ground here, that they're running through this, as you call it, a back-out procedure from getting ready for landing. Is everything going pretty smoothly up there? CADY COLEMAN, NASA ASTRONAUT: I think so. There's a lot of different things to do, reconfiguring the computers. We have them all up for landing, but really only need two to keep an eye on things while we're up in orbit. And so we'll power down just to conserve power.
And while Eileen and Jim Kelly are doing that, probably with Steve Robinson helping them, the rest of the crew is just getting, you know, into their plain clothes, and getting out of those space suits, and trying to keep everything straight. It's like getting a family of seven out of their snow suits in a very small place and you don't want to get stuff mixed up.
M. O'BRIEN: And identical snow suits, too, so it must be very easy to get things confused, boots, all those things.
COLEMAN: Everything's got a color, got a little Velcro tab on. Everybody's got a color. I was M.S. one. You're blue. So you look for those blue tabs.
I actually mixed up a payload specialist's boots, very big boots for very small boots at one point.
M. O'BRIEN: That's not good, not good. Well, it's kind of like we're animals, I guess, up there.
Everything is color-coded, Carol, so they can keep the right suits on the right bodies, and you want the right boots on. That's for sure.
COSTELLO: Oh, that could be very painful if you had the wrong boots on.
(LAUGHTER)
Miles and Cady, we're going to get back to you. I want to talk to Chad a little bit about the weather in Florida.
And, Chad, I want to read to you what the man at Mission Control said about the weather. He said, "The one word that describes this all night is unstable." Our current weather is actually go, the forecast is technically go, as well, however we just can't get comfortable with the situation.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right.
COSTELLO: What does he mean?
MYERS: Well, I use unstable in a different way that he uses unstable, because his threshold is different. When I say the atmosphere is unstable, that means that there's a big potential for severe thunderstorms to pop up. Well, they popped up yesterday, and that's what all the colors were across Florida yesterday.
All the white, it came across Tampa, and then, boom, right across eastern Florida. That's unstable that I use. The unstable that he was talking about was the very, very small outflow boundaries and the low clouds that were kind of just moving around the area.
There's the rain from yesterday. Now it's moved away. In fact, the skies were pretty clear above about 8,000 feet. That was part of the problem. Those clear skies allowed the surface to cool down. That cooler surface, actually, had more cloud cover.
Now we're going to move you ahead until today through tomorrow. There'll be more showers during the day today. Now we move you ahead until tonight. The skies clear off, the clouds go away. And then by 5:08 tomorrow morning Eastern time, there are still clouds up here, partly cloudy skies, low clouds, and a temperature of 73.
The relative humidity forecast for that area for tomorrow is still 92 percent; 100 percent is completely saturated. So some clouds will be there. Some areas will see showers and thunderstorms today. Those storms should be gone -- remember, they can't land it at all if there's rain around, because they can't fly it through.
One, it's hot. The rain hurts the outside of the shuttle. So we can't have any rain at all whatsoever. In the morning hours, it's pretty good time to have less rain across Florida. There's a lot of rain up here, and a lot of rain all the way up even into parts of the upper Midwest to the mid-Atlantic. And that'll be the forecast for later today.
We'll get to that, though, a little bit later, Carol.
COSTELLO: We'll be here patiently waiting. Thank you, Chad.
Let's talk about Peter Jennings, because, you know, he died last night. Peter Jennings first reported from London for ABC News and from nearly every other world capital. Jennings died of lung cancer.
Two years ago, he discussed the war in Iraq on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: What's your overview of this whole Iraq thing?
PETER JENNINGS, FORMER ANCHOR, "WORLD NEWS TONIGHT": Well, it's hard. I never thought it was going to be anything but hard. I lived in the Middle East, as you know, a long time.
It's a great American adventure in the Middle East, however well you prepare for it -- and it's clear, I think, and almost everybody now acknowledges that we didn't prepare well enough for the post immediate war environment -- is a big adventure in a part of the world which has bedeviled foreign powers since the very least the end of World War I when the British went to Iraq.
Listening to the president last night, I think, was to be reminded that he and all of us in the country now feel the challenge of it in ways that we didn't feel when the Army and the Marines were rushing across great empty expanses of desert and doing fabulously well.
KING: Did they read it wrong, because they have been surprised?
JENNINGS: Probably, we should not have been as surprised. But I think that the confusion of the immediate -- let's go up to that moment when the president said, "Major combat is over." It looked easy.
And if it looked that easy, I think a lot of people -- including a lot of very good military analysts, yours and ours included -- wondered out loud in many instances, "What's going on here?" You know, "Where are the revolutionary guard? Where are the Fedayeen? Why are they falling back all the time?"
The technological superiority of American weapons and the organization of moving this huge force at such speech, I think held us all enthralled for a while. I kept reminding myself -- and I've been reminded by some of my colleagues who know the area even better -- "Don't forget the British advance on Iraq," you know, at the early part of the century.
And so you're always -- if as long as you keep reminding yourself of history, I think you're on a little safer ground.
KING: You know the region as well as anyone...
JENNINGS: No, not as well as anyone...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Certainly as any American journalist, you know it as well.
JENNINGS: I think even that's a stretch.
KING: OK. At the end of World War II, Germans didn't kill American soldiers. Japanese didn't kill American soldiers. Why are they killing American soldiers?
JENNINGS: Oh, because I think, in some respects, a lot of people think the war is not over. And I have this little thing in my mind -- and I've heard other people talk about it, much more learned than I -- that Saddam Hussein may have planned for this particular eventuality, an absolutely hugely dynamic American onslaught which neither he, nor the Iraqi army, nor the revolutionary guard or anybody could contend with effectively, and so they would fight in another way.
I don't know that to be the case. In fact, one of the things I know that distresses people in the administration, and that is whether or intelligence is good, bad or indifferent in Iraq at the moment.
Are we dealing with remnants of the Fedayeen? Are we dealing with remnants of the Baath Party? Are we dealing with those? Are we dealing with a sudden intrusion of terrorists from other parts of the neighborhood? I don't think we really know.
KING: Why aren't they happy he's gone? JENNINGS: Well, I think some people are happy he's gone. And some people could hardly wait for him to go. And some people prayed that he would go.
KING: That would be the majority, wouldn't it?
JENNINGS: Yes, I think it would be the majority. But what we see in the wake of the war, or in this continuation of the war, is a measure of chaos, and insecurity, and inadequacy in people's lives, from electricity -- you know, sometimes, by the way, working quite well in some parts of the country, if you look at the statistics.
Universities are back, schools are back, hospitals appear to be working again. So it's not all as bleak as I think some people make it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Peter Jennings on "LARRY KING LIVE." It's going to be a very tough day at ABC here in New York and, of course, around the globe. So we want to go to Jason Carroll, who's standing outside of ABC World Headquarters here in New York.
Good morning, Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol.
Peter Jennings died at his home last night with his family by his side. I think many people here at ABC expected this news, but I still think, Carol, that it came as somewhat of a shock to many people here.
Peter Jennings helped make ABC News what it is today. He was just -- he had such a commanding presence. He was the type of journalist that could take an audience through a crisis, whatever type of crisis it may be, an election, he was able to do it with grace, he was able to do it with authority.
He spent 41 years at ABC. And while he was at the network, I think Jennings represented the kind of hard news type of journalist that, whether he was reporting from the Middle East or anchoring from the news desk here in New York, he was demanding of his staff, demanding of his writers, demanding of his correspondents -- I think any correspondent who worked on his broadcast would tell you that he was demanding -- but I think that they would also tell you he was demanding because he cared so much about the product.
Late last night, his colleagues spoke to Charles Gibson about what kind of man Peter was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED KOPPEL, ABC NEWS: I do feel the need to say that he was a warm, and loving, and surprisingly sentimental man.
BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: No one could adlib like Peter. Sometimes he drove me crazy, because he knew every detail. And I would find myself saying, "But, but." But he really did -- you would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: Jennings made the announcement that he had lung cancer in April. It was inoperable, and he went straight into chemotherapy. His family released a statement of late last night saying, quote, "Peter died with his family around him, without pain and in peace. He knew he had lived a good life."
Jennings is survived by his wife, Kayce. Also, he had a son and a daughter. Peter Jennings was 67 years old -- Carol?
COSTELLO: Jason Carroll, reporting live here from New York. Thank you.
Still to come this morning on DAYBREAK, we'll take you back live to the Kennedy Space Center and look at the shuttle mission day by day. And what lies ahead for Discovery? You're watching DAYBREAK for Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Discovery was NASA's third space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet, arriving for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in November 1983. After check out and processing, it was launched on August 30, 1984, for its first mission to deploy three communication satellites.
Since that inaugural flight, Discovery has completed 30 successful missions, more than any other orbiter in NASA's fleet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: The choice of the name "Discovery" carried on a tradition drawn from some historic Earth-bound exploring ships. One of the sailing forerunners was the vessel used in the early 1600s by Englishman Henry Hudson in his search for a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
During its many successful trips to space, Discovery has carried satellites aloft, ferried modules and crew to the International Space Station, and provided the setting for countless scientific experiments.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back to our coverage of the end of the mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery, that end coming about 24 hours from now, no sooner, as the weather here in Florida did not cooperate for a landing today. Just as things were getting close to that, 4:45 was the first opportunity and then 6:22 a.m., both of those Eastern time, in both cases, low clouds in and around the Kennedy Space Center made mission managers, the flight director in Houston at the flight control room, concerned enough to give the shuttle crew another day in space.
So they are in the midst right now of undoing what they did to get ready to come back home -- that's no small task -- and then hopefully enjoying a little bit of time looking out the window. And then we'll just do a Groundhog Day scenario here tomorrow, as the space shuttle will begin that whole process again.
Tomorrow, it will be slightly different, in the sense that there'll be some opportunities for landing here in Florida, as well as Edwards Air Force Base in California and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. More of a push to get the shuttle on the ground tomorrow.
Clearly, the goal is, whenever possible, to get the space shuttle at the end of a mission back to Florida. It's a lot cheaper, a lot easier. But, certainly, the possibility with weather and all the other considerations getting the crew home, consumables on the orbiter. Do they have enough, all they need to stay in orbit?
All those come into play and might very well see the space shuttle on the ground, say, at Edwards Air Force Base tomorrow, as well. Those are all possibilities.
Let's talk about this mission for just a few moments. This is a return-to-flight mission which caught of all us -- kept us with a lot of focus all along the way. From launch all the way through, it has had some -- it's been quite a rollercoaster ride, really, for NASA.
Joining me to kind of walk us through the mission and talk about what happened in space, what happened during launch, right beside me here is Cady Coleman, current NASA astronaut whose angling now for her next flight. We're trying to work on that right now.
And Kathy Sullivan, who has had her flights and has moved on into other things now. She's joining us from Columbus, Ohio.
And we'll just start right off. We'll run through the calendar and talk about this. First of all, of course, July 13th was our first attempt at launch. We had a scrub at the beginning of this. July 13th, we had some problems with some sensors, fuel gauges, essentially, and that led us to this scene, July 26th and launch.
And immediately after launch, two minutes after, we saw that shot -- which you're about to see here, there it is -- that falling piece of foam.
Cady, when you saw it, did you know what it was right away? I couldn't tell what it was initially.
COLEMAN: No, I think it takes some analysis to understand that. That bigger piece turns out to be a piece of what we call the PAL ramp. And it's a site where we actually talked long and hard about, "Is this a place that we want to reengineer? In doing so, are we going to break something that doesn't need fixed?"
It was the subject of great discussion, you know, and certainly something that we're going to be addressing in the future.
M. O'BRIEN: Which brings us to the next day of the mission, Wednesday, July 27th. That is when the very comprehensive surveys of the exterior of the Space Shuttle Discovery began. And that was focused on the leading edge of the wing, which was, of course, where the heat shield was breached on Columbia 2 1/2 years ago.
And also, we got some additional information on possible damage to the exterior of the orbiter. There was that foam, in addition to the protruding gap filler, which we got some information on, as well. That foam, that big piece of foam, while it fell harmlessly, there were some smaller pieces which actually struck the orbiter.
At that time, that was when the deputy program manager for the space shuttle program, Wayne Hale, said, "You know, we need to do better than this. If this had happened earlier," that foam striking, not what you're seeing there necessarily, "it would have been a bad situation." And at that point, they said they would suspend future shuttle flights until this foam situation was rectified.
Kathy Sullivan, in retrospect, do you think -- was that a good call, to say, essentially, ground the shuttle fleet? They don't like the term "grounding," but for most laypeople, that's tantamount to what it is. Was that a good call, do you think?
SULLIVAN: I think it's a prudent step to take, Miles. Remember, one of the critiques coming out of the Columbia accident board was to get the balance right, put the burden or the obligation on the correct side of the equation.
So by announcing that flights are suspended until there's greater clarity about what is going on with the foam on the tank and whether there are other lurking problems, such as the PAL ramp, Wayne, basically, and the program put the burden on those who want to come forward and prove that it is safe, rather than leaving the burden on those who want to object that it's not safe to fly.
I think it's the right sort of shift. It just reminds everybody to buckle down now, and really dig into the analysis, and come up with sound answers that demonstrate either a good remediation path or a clear understanding of the technical basis that caused the debris to fall off on this flight.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. That's good rationale.
Thursday, July 28th, day three, that's when the shuttle docked at the space station. Eileen Collins performed that unprecedented somersault move, as she approached the space station.
That gave the space station crew an opportunity to take a series of pictures using 400-millimeter -- there you see it kind of in sped- up motion there -- 400-millimeter and 800-millimeter lens. And that's when they found those protruding gap fillers, those little pieces that go in between the tiles, which ultimately led to a spacewalk later in the mission where they were plucked out.
Friday, the 29th, the International Space Station activities, the multipurpose logistics module -- that's like just a glorified shipping container, I guess -- was docked on the space station, and that began the process -- because this was, after all, a mission to resupply this space station, which is badly in need of supplies, with a 2 1/2 year absence from the space shuttle. And that process was done on that day.
Saturday, the 30th, spacewalk number one, Steve Robinson, Soichi Noguchi were practicing methods to fix tiles in space. If there were the need to, you know, Bondo a tile, if you will, in space.
I know Cady Coleman was involved in that. How did that go? What was your sense of it? I know you were involved in that whole notion of how to fix tiles in space.
COLEMAN: Well, we always like to test something on orbit and/or under actual conditions. And the thing we tested -- we tested two kinds of things. One was called emittance wash. And that's when we have some sort of a shallow damage that, really, we just need to change the color of it, the emittance, how much heat it can radiate so that we have a safer entry.
When you talk about actually filling in a big hole with goop, so to speak, that could test what's going to happen on STS-121. That's got a lot of variables with it, and so we're interested to see how that test turned out.
And we've also looked at some of the reinforced carbon-carbon in repairs, crack repairs on that, actually filling in now with Bondo, as you said. It's actually called NOAX. Just putting things in the crack and seeing, does that behave, does the system behave? Even the tools that we use, do they work as well in a microgravity environment in a big space suit?
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Sunday, July 31st, there was an important news conference by the NASA administrator where he questions at that point, should the entire program be grounded permanently? He said we'd feel awfully silly if we made some premature decision to shut down the shuttle.
And then it turned out the fix, referring to the foam problems, wasn't all that difficult and we could get on with flying the shuttle safely. So he making the statement right there that they need to know a little bit more about this before any big decisions like that are made.
Monday, the 1st of August, second spacewalk. This was an important thing for the space station. The gyroscopes on board there have been causing all kinds of problems. They basically hot-wired one, installed another one, and got the system back up and running. That's important to keep the space station flying straight and level without having to use rocket fuel to keep it the way you want it in orbit. Tuesday, August 2nd, they began the process of talking about this gap filler removal spacewalk. The crew kind of downplayed this as a risky maneuver. A lot of people said it was risky.
Of course, any time you step out into the void and do a spacewalk, that's risky, but it was unprecedented for the crew to get it in such close proximity to the belly of the shuttle, which, on the one hand, is extremely hearty, can stand up to 2,500 degrees, but, on the same token, it's like me being in a Pottery Barn, and something might get broken.
So you want to be very careful when you do that. As it turns out, Wednesday, August 3rd, astronaut Steve Robinson, attached to the end of a glorified cherry picker, the space station's robot arm got in close proximity of the shuttle's belly. And everything went true to the plan.
He went up. He had a bunch of tools with him in case, forceps, and a saw, and some scissors, if need be. But, in the end, all it took was an opposable thumb to remove that protruding gap filler there. Those gap fillers of concern because there was a concern they would actually create kind of a blow-torch effect, more heat at those locations and downstream of them.
Kathy Sullivan, you were with us while we were watching that spacewalk. It really was remarkable to be over Steve Robinson's shuttle. Of course, astronauts get paid for the pressure, but I can only imagine what the pressure was like, knowing the whole world was watching him do that.
SULLIVAN: Well, you know, I think the fact that the whole word is watching is just a constant in this business. And it's not something that you're routinely mindful of. You're just focused on doing the job and getting it done the right way.
So I know Steve had his head completely full of being sure he knew where his field of vision limits were, making sure that Soichi was keeping an eye on him, and just going through in his own mind what his expectations were, what he thought the site picture would look like, and making sure that he was communicating very clearly with Jim Kelly back in -- driving the manipulator arm, so that they didn't mis- position him, get him out of the work site, or drive him into something inadvertently.
I don't think he was too worried about what any of us were thinking.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think he was pretty focused on the task at hand.
CADY COLEMAN, NASA ASTRONAUT: And, you know, I actually have to clarify one thing, Miles...
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
COLEMAN: ... which is that we heard Jim Kelly's voice as he talked about where Steve wanted to navigate. But the person actually driving the arm that day was Wendy Lawrence.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, good. Let's make that clear. They were working as a team there, as they always do. Thursday, August 4, Cady Coleman giving credit where credit is due.
NASA decides against a fourth spacewalk. That was still in play up until that moment. The issue is this: that tattered piece of blanket up near Eileen Collins' cockpit window.
The determination was they couldn't come up with a good way to fix it, for one thing. Secondly, it's not an area that is exposed to a tremendous amount of heat. It wasn't a thermal issue necessarily. The concern was that some debris would form, maybe striking something downstream of it.
Bottom line was that they determined this risk was not a big deal, although Wayne Hale said something that is always true in this business, we're here to tell you that we are 100 percent confident there is -- I'm not here to tell you that we are 100 percent confident that there is no risk during entry. And that's, of course, as you would expect.
Finally, Friday, August 5, that container, the multipurpose logistics module, put back in the shuttle. In it now trash instead of the stuff that was left behind for the space station. Talk about an expensive trash hauler, the shuttle is.
And then, Saturday, August 6, the undocking from the space station, the crew doing a little victory lap around the space station, taking some pictures along the way.
And then finally, Sunday, flight director Leroy Cain (ph), who is the ascent and entry flight director who you saw there on console this morning, saying they are ready for the landing. They're still ready. Mother Nature wasn't ready this morning, Carol. But that's why we will be back here talking about these things tomorrow -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And hopefully Mother Nature will be more cooperative tomorrow.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, let's hope so.
COSTELLO: Because you never know. Thank you, Miles.
Before we head to a break, we want to test your shuttle stuff. The shuttle is able to stay in Earth's orbit for several days. On one trip the shuttle circled the Earth for 17-and-a-half days. Which year was it? Was it 1986, '92, 2000 or 2003? We'll have the answer for you a little later on DAYBREAK.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
We've been following another major story for you this morning. We're looking back on the life of ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings. The network confirmed late last night that Jennings died of lung cancer about four months after he revealed his illness on the air.
CNN's Tom Foreman recaps a career that spanned decades and that spanned the world.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Peter Jennings was born in Toronto, died in New York and lived for the world's news.
ANNOUNCER: This is "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."
PETER JENNINGS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Good evening everyone. We're going to begin tonight with Saddam Hussein.
FOREMAN: For 32 years he was ABC's chief anchor.
JENNINGS: I've had -- I been to a lot of countries. I've covered a lot of great stories. I've been there for some of the great moments of the last 30 years. And I'm really lucky.
FOREMAN: Jennings was born to broadcasting. His father, Charles, was an anchorman in Canada. At 9, Peter hosted a kid's show. In his teens, he took a radio job. And at 26, without ever completing high school, he joined ABC news.
JENNINGS: This is my first story outside Saigon, and I found out in a hurry.
This is Peter Jennings, ABC News.
FOREMAN: An early stint as anchor pitted him against the legendary Walter Cronkite on CBS and the Huntley-Brinkley team on NBC. Jennings was too young, too inexperienced, too Canadian. He lost the position.
JENNINGS: And most Egyptians thoughts are not on war, they're on inflation.
FOREMAN: So, he began building his reporter's resume: the Middle East, on the Civil Rights trail in the south.
JENNINGS: It started with a single man, and it ended with a crowd...
FOREMAN: In the farm fields of Cuba.
JENNINGS: Never in the history of a revolution has sugar cane been as important as this year.
FOREMAN: At the Olympic village in Munich.
JENNINGS: Two negotiators who went in just a few minutes ago have now come back out and are standing in a group.
FOREMAN: And when he rose to become ABC's chief anchor again after Tom Brokaw turned the job down, he was ready.
JENNINGS: Ginsberg is charged with anti-Soviet behavior. Suranski (ph) is charged, much more seriously, with treason.
FOREMAN: A demanding, often unpredictable boss, he was equally capable of relentlessly driving his staff or showing great compassion.
JENNINGS: How are you feeling these days?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I feel much better than I did.
FOREMAN: He always delighted in reporting, whether describing a makeshift lamp in Sarajevo...
JENNINGS: They fill it up almost to the very top with water and then put a thin film of oil on the top.
FOREMAN: ... or matching wits with world leaders.
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I will go to my grave being at peace about it. And I don't really care what they think.
JENNINGS: Oh, yes you do, Bill.
CLINTON: They have no idea.
JENNINGS: Excuse me Mr. President. You -- I can feel it across the room.
CLINTON: No, no.
JENNINGS: You feel very deeply.
CLINTON: I care -- I care. You don't want to go here Peter. You don't want to go here.
FOREMAN: But Peter Jennings was at his best when news was breaking.
JENNINGS: Because this was an attack on these -- on the United States. No question about it. Everybody said it all day, a declaration of war, an act of war against the United States.
FOREMAN: He loved hockey, history, culture, politics.
JENNINGS: I think when you come home and participate in the democratic process, even vicariously as journalists do, I think it's extraordinarily moving.
FOREMAN: And he loved trying to understand what drives Americans to work, to play, to dream, to pray.
JENNINGS: I've been searching for America ever since I came to America 30-some-odd years ago. All journalists are. FOREMAN: He wrote books, married four times, had children and became an American citizen himself, finally, two years ago. Peter Jennings promised to keep working throughout his illness. And he did, right up to the end of his own story.
JENNINGS: Have a good evening. I'm Peter Jennings. Thanks. And good night.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Reaction is pouring in this morning from Peter Jennings' colleagues. ABC News president Dave Weston says none of us will be the same without him. ABC veteran Barbara Walters called Jennings poetic. And ABC's Ted Koppel says even though Jennings was a high school dropout, he was a student for the rest of his life.
Many of you are waking up this morning to learn for the first time that Jennings died. He came into our homes for more than 20 years as the voice of ABC's "World News Tonight." And since then, the Internet has become an important part of how we get our information.
So, how is the cyber community reacting to this news?
Joining me to talk about that is Drew Curtis, who heads up the Web site fark.com.
Actually, Drew, this broke on the Internet before it broke on network television.
DREW CURTIS, FARK.COM: That's right. Although it's very easy to write something down as opposed to produce the shows.
COSTELLO: Yes, you don't know whether it's true or not either.
CURTIS: Exactly, exactly.
COSTELLO: But, I mean, it really gained momentum quickly.
CURTIS: It certainly did as a matter of fact. One of the interesting things about running an Internet Web sites is that some of the comments that people make tend to be a little bit, you know, meaner than they normally would. But when something this tragic occurs, it's amazing the outpouring of emotion that people will give, and in general it's a lot more civil than you would expect, I would say.
COSTELLO: Yes. You have some examples for us, I see.
CURTIS: Yes. For example, some of the postings from this morning that were on Fark and across the blog sphere: "Rest in peace, Peter, ABC News will never be the same. The voice of the news as far as I'm concerned. I grew up watching him every weeknight. God speed, Peter, you will be missed. Good-bye, Peter Jennings. In the end, it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years. "Here's to a man that led an amazing life. He was the best there ever was. I literally cried when I heard the news. This man was a part of America, a truly consummate professional. And finally, "He was great at his job, incredibly clever, incredibly respectable, enormously dedicated. I really respected him."
COSTELLO: Oh. You know, one of the toughest things about this is he gave that last broadcast, and his voice was breaking, because he was so very sick already.
CURTIS: Yes.
COSTELLO: And you somehow knew he probably would not be back. But he wanted to sound so positive about that. People kept waiting for him to come back, and he never did.
CURTIS: Yes, it's very unfortunate. The good news is, though, is I did some research to try to find some best of Peter Jennings moments on the Internet. And I wasn't able to find very many humorous gaffes. He didn't seem to make many at all.
COSTELLO: No.
CURTIS: But luckily, right before he went off the air, he was able to do a UFO show, where he was able to deny the existence of a shadow government, and that apparently angered many, many people across the Internet.
COSTELLO: Well, especially those who really do believe in UFOs.
CURTIS: Yes.
COSTELLO: And those people are not -- I mean, are very easily angered if you don't believe what they say.
CURTIS: Yes. So -- but, yes, he was a great man. He'll be missed.
COSTELLO: Yes. Thank you for sharing. We appreciate it.
CURTIS: Thank you.
COSTELLO: We'll be right back.
COSTELLO: And it's time. We wanted to test your shuttle knowledge. We asked you on one trip the shuttle circled the Earth for a total of 17-and-a-half days. Which year was that mission, 1986, '92, 2000 or 2003? And the answer is 1986.
So congrats to all of you who were right. And, no, you will not win a DAYBREAK coffee mug. That comes later at the end of our program.
Let's head to the Kennedy Space Center one more time and check in with Miles.
OK. This thing will probably take off...
M. O'BRIEN: Wait a minute, wait a minute. COSTELLO: What?
M. O'BRIEN: Why no mug? Why no mug?
COSTELLO: No mug for that question. Maybe it's...
M. O'BRIEN: Why not?
COSTELLO: Maybe you can send them a little something from NASA.
M. O'BRIEN: Oh, well, we'll have to look into that.
COSTELLO: Too many to send out, right?
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, probably.
COSTELLO: All right. So, this shuttle will probably land maybe, weather permitting, at 5:08 Eastern Time tomorrow.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think you put enough qualifiers on that one. That's about where we are. Yes, it's a tough business, and there are a lot of things. You know, as we look at this weather here, which is just beautiful right now, the problem is they have to project out into the future, of course, and make decisions based on a situation that is very dynamic. And they erred on the side of conservatism this morning.
The truth was the chief astronaut, Kent Rominger (ph), was on the radio saying, hey, let's go for landing. But because of the way things were changing, they couldn't get comfortable in Houston, and then said, you know, let's just wait and do it 24 hours from now.
Former NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan has been with us all morning, listening to all of these calls and these decisions.
And you can't fault them for erring on the side of conservatism in the wake of everything we've seen, right, Kathy?
SULLIVAN: Not a bit, Miles. It's exactly what you learn flying airplanes, make the decision that lets you fly another day. And as you pointed out, Kent Rominger (ph) is able to report what the weather is looking like at each end of the runway to him as he sits there. But the flight directors and flight controllers back in Houston have to merge that report with all of the other forecast information that helps them understand what is it going to be like 30 to 60 minutes later when the shuttle actually arrives in the area, with no opportunity to go around?
M. O'BRIEN: So, as far as the crew right now, they're kind of walking through that process, which takes several hours really, to get back in the spacecraft mode. And they're probably saving the moment, I guess, huh?
SULLIVAN: I would say they probably are. The work of the flight is done, everything really fabulously successfully. You're not going to unpack everything and start back into an experiment or something at this point. So, it really is to keep an eye orbiter, keep things partly stowed away, enjoy about 24 hours on orbit with a very light workload that's mainly housekeeping on the vessel itself.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Kathy Sullivan, I hope you come back tomorrow morning and be with us again when we do this one more time. And wherever the shuttle may land, we will, of course, bring that coverage to you.
Carol, the...
COSTELLO: Hey, Miles. Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: Keep Kathy around for just a second, because, you know, our viewers...
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: ... are sending in so many questions about the shuttle. In fact, Chad has one now for you and Kathy. Go ahead, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I have one from Maguiddie (ph). He says, "I don't think NASA should scrap this shuttle all together, but they need to improve it. They need to stop making the same mistakes. Have they ever thought about doing liftoff simulations to figure out what's really happening?
M. O'BRIEN: A liftoff simulation. How would you do that, though? You know, the thing about the shuttle is what -- you can only simulate so much, and the fact of the real world environment produces foam falling off, I don't know that they -- you know, they ran that tank through all kinds of computer simulations, fluid dynamics. But if it turns out that something was not sprayed on properly, there's nothing in the simulations of the computers that would really give you that kind of information.
MYERS: Well, maybe what he's...
M. O'BRIEN: Kathy, do you want to elaborate on that one?
SULLIVAN: Miles...
MYERS: What he's talking about, I think, is actually taking the thing off without a shuttle attached to see what happens.
M. O'BRIEN: Oh, I see what you're saying. Just -- oh, and just do it with nobody on board.
MYERS: Yes.
SULLIVAN: It's a great hypothetical, but it's actually not possible from an engineering point of view to fly the vehicle that way. So, your challenge is to use it as a flight test vehicle yourself or do what you can through partial testing, computer modeling, computational fluid dynamics, wind tunnels. But as Miles was sort of alluding to, it's only when you take all of those variables -- the temperature on the launch pad, moisture in the air, accumulation on the foam, rapid depressurization, very high mach numbers -- all of that happens on top of each other in eight-and-a- half minutes. That's the real stress of the real world environment, and it's not producible in a test environment.
COSTELLO: So there you have it. You have it.
OK, Miles and Kathy, thank you so much for answering those questions. Of course, there will be many more questions posed to you throughout the day here on CNN.
We're going to be right back with much more. You stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Beginning today, afternoons will be a bit different on CNN. CNN's Wolf Blitzer will anchor a three-hour broadcast from Washington. It's going to be called "The Situation Room." The program will give you a first look at stories from Washington and around the world.
Here is Wolf with a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're here in "THE SITUATION ROOM." We're going to be spending a lot of time here, showing our viewers what's going on in Washington, around the United States, around the world.
Check out our video wall. We're going to be able to bring in feeds from around the world, showing live images, lives pictures of any story that's happening. They're going to be coming in here.
Not only video. We're going to have a chance to bring in the data that's coming in from various Internet Web sources, whether "The New York Times" or Time.com, CNN.com. We're going to be focusing in on that as well.
It's an opportunity for us to showcase CNN's incredible news- gathering capabilities, and let our viewers see what we see when we see it.
We're going to spend a lot of time checking out the news involving security, whether homeland security, national security, security involving your health, economic security, your personal security. Much of that during the 3:00 hour.
For all you political news junkies out there, politics. We'll spend a lot of time on politics during the 4:00 hour. Remember, this is a time, especially along the East Coast, between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. Eastern, when news is still in flux, news is still changing. We're going to try to help you understand what's going on when we understand it.
During our third and final hour, we'll try to wrap it all up and show you the news as it's developed, what we know, and when we know it.
It's an exciting new challenge for all of us. We're excited by it. We think you'll be excited by it as well.
I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. You're in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: "THE SITUATION ROOM" is where Washington's movers and shakers gather. You can see it right here on CNN every weekday afternoon from 3:00 to 6:00 Eastern Time.
Let's head to the forecast center.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: We're going to take a short break. We'll be back with news headlines right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: "Now in the News."
Longtime ABC News anchor Peter Jennings had died of lung cancer. He was 67. He revealed his illness on the air about four months ago. Jennings spent more than 30 years anchoring the reporting for ABC.
Japan is facing a political crisis this morning. The prime minister is poised to call a snap general election; this, after the upper house of parliament rejected his proposal to privatize Japan's postal system.
It is a key day in the London terror probe. This morning, court hearings are under way for six men accused in the bungled bombing attempts of July 21. Most of them are facing attempted murder charges.
From the Time Warner center in New York, I'm Carol Costello along with Chad Myers. "AMERICAN MORNING" starts right now.
M. O'BRIEN: Thanks very much, Carol. I'm Miles O'Brien live at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission extended. Not taking any chances. NASA delays the landing of the space shuttle Discovery for at least another day. Weather concerns behind that decision.
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